From 2003 to 2009 Shadid was a staff writer forThe Washington Post where he was an Islamic affairs correspondent based in the Middle East. He previously worked as Middle East correspondent for theAssociated Press based in Cairo and as news editor of the AP bureau in Los Angeles. He spent two years covering diplomacy and the State Department forThe Boston Globe before joining thePost'sforeign desk.[7][8]
In 2002, he was shot in the shoulder by an Israel sniper inRamallah[9] while reporting for theBoston Globe in theWest Bank. The bullet also grazed his spine.[10][11]
On March 16, 2011, Shadid and three colleagues were reported missing in Eastern Libya, having gone there to report on the uprising against the dictatorship of Col.Muammar Al-Ghaddafi.[12] On March 18, 2011,The New York Times reported that Libya agreed to free him and three colleagues:Stephen Farrell,Lynsey Addario andTyler Hicks.[13] The Libyan government released the four journalists on March 21, 2011.[14]
Journalist Anthony Shadid in a talk at Harvard Law School
Shadid died at age 43 on February 16, 2012, from a "fatalasthma attack" while attempting to leaveSyria.[15][17] Shadid's smoking and extreme allergy to horses are believed to be the major contributing factors in causing his fatal asthma attack.[17][18] "He was walking behind some horses," said his father. "He's more allergic to those than anything else—and he had an asthma attack."[18] His body was carried toTurkey byTyler Hicks, a photographer forThe New York Times.[2][19]
Shadid's cousin, Dr. Edward Shadid of Oklahoma City, challenged theTimes' version of the death, and instead blamed the publication for forcing him into Syria.[2]
Shadid's experiences in Iraq formed the subject for his 2005 bookNight Draws Near, an empathetic look at how the war has impacted the Iraqi people beyond liberation and insurgency.
Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats, and the New Politics of Islam (Westview Press, 2002)
Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (New York:Henry Holt and Company, 2005)[25]
^Anthony Shadid,House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012 p.7: 'I was shot by an Israeli sniper in Ramallah.'
